The thoughts of you I
thought I had relinquished
come to haunt me in the
silence of the night.

Those moments between sound
swim with your voice,
and I shake with the pain of
it.

Where were you then?
Where were you when
loneliness threatened to
chew out my heart,
when despair wanted to spit
out the remains?

Where were you when I cried
my throat raw or when my
nails drew blood from my
palms?
Where were you when I missed
you most?

Are the roots of that cherry
tree more comfortable than
the spot by my side?
Do worms and maggots make
for better company than I?
How long are you planning to
sleep under that cover of
cool,
black earth?

You left with a smile,
joking how fast you’d return
and I waited.
Oh how I waited.
Years passed,
and through sleet and snow
and dry famine I waited,
and when you came back it,
it was covered in flowers,
pale and cold,
but with that same contented
smile that you left with and
it tore out my soul.

I didn’t know what to do,
so I continued the only
thing I knew how.
I waited.
Even now I am still waiting.
For what I don’t know,
but I can only wait while
you sleep.

But those silent nights hurt
the most,
and I long to leave the pain
behind,
but where am I supposed to
go when I am overwhelmed
with thoughts of you?

Poof goes the pattering
rain,
something pulls at your
heart
as you ponder your dire
plight
and you feel it,
the pull of eyes as the
plot against your person
grows more pitiless.

Your pulse pounds in
your ears and the patch
of skin on your pale neck
pricks with pain. The power
of those peering eyes feels
like they will pluck every
piece of hair off your
pitiful head. But your pride
holds you in place with your
hands in you pockets.

You can’t pass up this
opportunity,
so you let yourself slide
into the pit,
pitch your heart off the
pier,
rather than let
the pear rot to powder in a moment of
peace
along with the pideons.

Prose of pens will get you nowhere,
and neither will praise,
nor prattle,
nor playful poems,
not even on Pluto,
you poor,
powerless thing.

Please look
the other way instead, and
plug your ears as I pick and
plod my way through the pickled remains of plaster
and pavement
in a city once like Paris,
all to put your pretty heart
back
inside it’s place and press
my hand against your
pleasant, cheek with a
painful expression passing
my puffy lips.

I puddle like pudding as I
pose
the question in pencil
while poodles and pugs
wander around the pines.

Fair weather fools, though
truly foolish,
who’s to say that their sight makes
them blind? But consider
this, their kind of
kindness within a summer
squall is not a squander nor
a shallow measure to meet some
grand design.

It’s real,
so take it as right.

This writ of wrongness
waged against them,
raged against them,
it’s wrong and I task you to understand,
to understand this reasoning,
that you’ve wronged them with
rigor,
turned them vigorless,
without virtue
or vitality,
without value to their lives.

Oh how you’ve wronged them with
your words and your mind and your might of
pen and pine.

Please,
reconsider,
reconsider your prose.
Please,
have pity on their poor souls and
pour out your mercy and majesty.
I know,
you have it within yourself.

Let them be fools,
for surely you know
to forgive and forget these insecurities,
the fear,
the foreigness
they bestow upon you.
It is how they are.

Hapless beings they may be,
but for all that,
they have hope
and
they are happier than you will ever be.

I bite my tongue by accident.
I bite my tongue in frustration.
I bite it in anger, fury, rage induced blindness all condensed
into the tip of my tongue, and I
bite it in restraint.

I bite to hold back, to hold in, to keep it
all from
bubbling over because I’m vulnerable, exposed,
and shaken, all
because you’ve bit at my soul.

You’ve reached into a place you should’ve
never stepped and you tore
at the walls,
crushed all the precious things
inside, leaving salted wounds
and ravaged memories
in your wake, and I hate
you for it,

Eyes black like tar,
sticky,
melting bit by bit in the
sun, and the heat waves
rising uncertainly from the
ground as if
unsure
or maybe
unwilling to depart,
that’s how you stare at
me with black eyes like
tar.

Red lips like cherries,
deep in the fall,
slipping,
falling,
hitting the ground
hard and
cracking,
spilling out their guts like
insecurities born and bare
to the world, only
beaten down and
trodden upon by
uncaring feet.
Worried,
that’s how you bite your
lip, red like cherries
broken on the
ground.

Pale skin, bleached
like linen
left too long in the
sun, stiff and
clammy
from ocean spray and
left to hang by the
shoulders in
confusion
and immobility,
buffeted
by changing breezes,
changing tides,
unsteady emotions.
I wonder what you
think as you hide behind
that
pale, bleached
skin.

These features don’t conform
to the standards of beauty set by
your circles of friends, by
your role models, by
all of society, and
you beat yourself
down because of them, saying
you’re gross,
ugly,
nose too big and teeth a bit
too
crooked,
ears that stick out, and a forehead
too wide.

Ungainly,
you say, and you bite your
lip
and chew till the skin
cracks
and
breaks
and bleeds.

I see your
red lips
and soft skin.
I kiss your
forehead
and your nose.
I play with the
ridges
on your ears
and I stare
in awe,
at the teeth
flashing behind
your muted
smile.

I don’t need plastic.
I don’t need fake,
imaginary,
superficial.
I don’t need society or its sense of
beauty.
I’ve got what I’ve been looking for, and
I’ve been looking for it all this time,